Most of the headlines I’ve seen about this have been polite and said that Senator Marbles linked fried chicken to poverty but let’s be clear…she made disparaging remarks about fried chicken and Southern food as a problem in “the black race”. It’s not about chicken.She also pronounced diabetes like Wilfed Brimley ,but that we will forgive. But the racial stereotyping of black people and their fried chicken? No love for that. I half expected her to start talking about how at least black people have watermelon and collard greens .

What she said exactly:

“When you look at life expectancy, there are problems in the black race: sickle-cell anemia is something that comes up, diabetes is something that’s prevalent in the genetic makeup and you just can’t help it,” Marble said. “Although I’ve got to say, I’ve never had better BBQ and better chicken and ate better in my life than when you go down south and you — I love it.”

Last I observed of my fellow white folks, they love fried chicken and they have diabetes like you wouldn’t believe. Oh, and Scottish people! Goddamn, no one deep fries candy bars like them.

People ….just plain people….all sorts of them…. eat fried food. Okay? If you want to link it with poverty, fine but I think you’ll actually find that people of all economic stature and racial groups in America eat fried stuff.

She also said that Mexicans only eat vegetables in Mexico but once they get here, they eat poorly. Well, could it be because they’re at a lower socio-economic level ,so their access to anything that isn’t crap is limited? Huh. Yeah, I think maybe that’s it.

Oh,there are so many talking points here. How racism is what keeps certain people impoverished.The disconnect far too many politicians have with poverty and our food system and how they affect each other. The fact that racism is a tool politicians consciously use . At least the majority of her colleagues are all like, Oh,honey, this is not about chicken.

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